oldskool: I've never heard of 'Paleo' but it does look similar to what diabetics should follow. I too am not a fanatic about counting carbs & I really don't care about calories. Occasionally I indulge in desserts, etc & treats like ice cream cones/bars generally have little effect on me. Interestingly, straight sugar doesn't bother me much unless it is in a ridiculously large dose as in a standard soda - average 40 gms per can. Diet soda is 0 grams. I use 'Splenda' as a sweetener for coffee, etc.

Amie: Have you tried 'hemp hearts'? They are a product of Manitoba & I get them at Costco for $14 a bag - pricey but they are very dense & go a long, long way. They are mostly protein & effectively no carbs. I sprinkle some on my low carb cereal for enhanced protein to carb ratio & add them to my 'Spelt Flour' bread that I bake in my breadmaker. I have a great bread recipe if anyone wants it.

You’ve got a nice simple program going there with compound lifts that hit all the body parts that matter for building bulk. That coupled with your Jiu-Jitsu and even soccer you might want to consider giving Westside a try since it’s easily customized to any sport that emphasizes both strength and speed because of the Dynamic Effort and General Physical Preparedness work done each week. So let me know if you’re interested in it and I can post some other links that help explain it in greater detail.

Yeah thanks, if you can post some links I'd be interested in checking something else out. I seem to have stalled on my current routine.

I looked back and saw that with your present schedule you only have 2 days to workout each week which sort of sucks. If that’s the case any there’s no way you can change that then you will have to stick with full-body workouts like you’re doing now. However, there are a couple things that might help.

It’s really just a programed form of clustering but it allows you to maximize muscle fiber activation with the minimum amount of reps for a given weight plus since you only wait 10-20 seconds between clusters you’re not wasting a lot of time sitting around the gym waiting to do the next set. I can easily get a Myo-rep workout consisting or Incline Bench, Chins, Military Press, Rows, Triceps Pressdowns and Cable Curls in 20 minutes. So you might consider doing a heavy light/medium split, doing a heavy day 5x5 style and a light/medium day Myo-rep style.

Another possible option is to use the Cressey Performance take on the “conjugate method which follows the same principles as Westside but with a different implementation.

Cressey also relies on Max Effort, Dynamic Effort and Repetition Effort training but the Dynamic Effort is done as a warmup to the Max Effort and the Max Effort uses a set/rep range of 3-4 sets for 3-6 reps rather than going for a max single like Westside. The Main difference it Cressey is training athletes for other sports so no need to focus on max singles as Westside does since their main focus is powerlifting.

So you could do a full body workout on each of your two days but basically add in the Dynamic Effort exercises to improve your rate of force development which should pay dividends in both soccer and martial arts which both emphasize speed at times.

Additionally if you can find the time after your martial arts training you could fit in some extra workouts using Myo-reps. These could be optional as long as you’re hitting your two main lifting days and could be used to bring up lagging muscles.

I've never used them on a salad but I certainly will try it. I would think that the would be excellent as they have a mild nutty flavour. Just try a little to start to see if it meets your taste. As I said before, a little goes a long way

On the news out here on their nutritional segment last week, the 'expert guest' raved about the benefits of this product.

BTW, I'm presently baking a 'Spelt Loaf' with some hemp hearts added in. It should be smelling good here in about an hour...

Well this just happened to me, no I didn’t turn green, well at least not yet but I trashed a coat jacket. I needed to try on my suits for something coming up and shouldn’t have pushed the issue and forced it on over my shoulders. I got stuck and couldn’t get it back off so I did a “most muscular pose” and ripped the seam in the back apart. There was no point in saving it to let it out since the bottom of the lapels were a good 5” apart.

Additionally I relegated the large T-shirts I bought just a while ago to the rag pile and switched to XL since they are now too small for my shoulders and upper back.

Is everyone here dieting? Ever since I started bulking again I’ve been on the good old see-food-diet but will probably cut back while deployed.